Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Horsehair Pottery Update

More on the orgins/history of Horsehair Pottery--

A recent comment was just posted on my Flickr Photo Site. ClayHorse, another Flicker potter, has just informed me that she recently learned that Horsehair Pottery was invented by Native Americans of the Southwest as a means to honor their fallen war horses.
Thanks ClayHorse.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeffrey.

Yes it would be great if you want to post a link to my blog and I will add your link to mine.

Thanks
Hal Giddens
http://www.homegrownpottery.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Cool site! Lets links exchange? :)


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See you tomorrow!

Anonymous said...

I have included below a message from his daughter to one of the blogs. I also found another message in a blog attributing Morier as the originator--I misspelled it the first time--it doesn't have a "t" in it. This other message is from a man who had met Michael and Beverly and still had the flyer from 1978 when he started the technique. The flyer gives similar information that the daughter describes below. I have been buying his pottery in exclusive galleries in Austin, TX for almost 30 years and have several pieces. I have never seen anyone whose technique comes close. The pottery looks like real ivory and you can see every individual line and wave of the hair. It isn't smudged. Karen Vandiver




I saw that there were many questions about Horsehair pottery on the archive.
I think I can take out some of the mystery






The true originator of horsehair pottery was Michael Morier of Belen, New
Mexico.



Michael taught on a Navajo reservation and learned to burnish and continued
pit firing and raku style pottery with the burnishing technique. He
experimented over time with various different combustibles and soon
discovered that hair made a remarkable burn.



Michael's pottery is unique from many of his imitators because:
He throws them on the wheel, not molds (see finger marks inside pot)
He actually burnishes them with polished stone to a high shine, not using a
polymer spray



He has fine speckles he adds with another secret ingredient









And others. At one point he was in over 50 galleries in the United States.
Before he had as many imitators that called it a Native American process
(some do, some just are native american and copy him, but don't claim
origin) he did much better.









To be fair, I should tell you that I am Michael's daughter.






One of the points made that horsehair pottery is not ancient Anasazi (as
some actually claim) is that horses were not here then!!



It needs to be noted that it is not the tribes that are claiming the
creation of the pottery but the individual "artists"



Michael's wife, Beverly, makes animals. The animals are made from molds but
are hand burnished, not sprayed. You will also note that he has more
planning in his placement of hair and in the direction of the swoop of the
design. I have some of his earlier stuff. The pots were thicker and he was
more random. I am noticing that he is heading back into the random
direction.



I hope this has been of assistance to you.



By the way, My dad's pottery is signed as well.



At one point, he paired up with artist Robert Redbird. He would give him 4
pots. R.R. Painted on all four and he would give two back to my dad. Only a
few of these exist, but they went for 1,600 each. I wish I had one!



He has been in many invitational art fairs, including Ann Arbor art fair
invitational section.



He also was chosen as one of four artists to participate in a March of Dimes
charity auction. He threw a very large pot in two pieces.






Kathryn (Morier) Whitaker